


Just Try

by nanases_h



Series: Free! University AU [1]
Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Character Study, Eating Disorders, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nanase Haruka and Tachibana Makoto Don't Grow Up Together, Studying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 17:36:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15823719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanases_h/pseuds/nanases_h
Summary: Makoto smiled a little. Sadness lingered in his eyes. “Don’t you miss swimming?”It had been a long time since Haru stopped doing what he loved most. He’d stopped eating too, not that anybody cared. But maybe there was someone who could see through him and make him realize what he was missing.





	Just Try

**Author's Note:**

> Content note: mentions of eating disorder 
> 
> vent writing of sorts? this is probably overdone, this whole ‘everyone loves haru and we have to make him realise that’, but i need to get it out of my head. enjoy!

**** “So what did the doctors say?” 

Haru stood in the corridor, leaning against the wall with his phone in between his ear and his shoulder.

“They’re letting me go as soon as I gain two more pounds,” he told his mother, fumbling with the hem of his oversized sweater.  

“Ah that’s great, dear! I know you can do it!” she said. “I’m sorry we couldn’t visit you at the hospital. You know how it is. Your father and I couldn’t just leave work and all…” 

“It’s okay, Mother, I understand.”

“But you’ll come over for Christmas, will you? You’re better now, aren’t you?” 

“Yes, totally better,” was Haru’s instant response.

A tide of people passed by as the morning classes ended. Idle chatter immediately filled the corridor, flowing from the classrooms.  

“Brilliant! We’ll see you then.” 

He hesitated, catching himself mindlessly playing with the arm that used to have hospital wristbands around it. His chest swelled with the strange satisfaction from how his thumb and his forefinger overlapped around his wrist, but he immediately reprimanded himself. He should be getting rid of this old habit. 

“Mother, I—“ 

A loud noise from the other end of the line interrupted him. “Sorry, dear. I’ve got to go now. Your father is getting a new car today and—  _ in a minute! _ ” His mother hollered at the person calling her, probably his father. “Right. I really have to go now. Bye, sweetheart!” 

Dial tone echoed in his ear before he could reply. 

Haru sighed and jogged down the stairs. Then, a familiar stabbing sensation tore at his stomach as acid rose up his throat. He was a few steps from the next landing when his heart started beating very fast. His legs felt weak and his vision blurred. He heard someone calling him, but he wasn’t sure. Wrapping his cold and clammy hands around the banister, he pressed his weight on it. 

The voice called him again, growing louder. Before he knew it, Tachibana Makoto was in front of him. 

“—ey, Haru!” He said. He took a closer look at Haru and suddenly, his wide green eyes were filled with worry. “Hey, are you okay?” 

“Y-Yeah, I’m okay,” said Haru. He blinked and breathed in deeply, and the corridor stopped spinning after a moment. “Do you need something?” 

“I was wondering if you can help me,” said Makoto, looking at his shoes, “with my Philosophy paper. I don’t know who else to ask because you’re the only one who gets As in that class.” 

They were majoring in different degrees, but they shared Philosophy class. Haru was majoring in Architecture. He was supposed to be in his third year with Makoto and Rin, his childhood best friend, but was held back a year due to unforeseen circumstances. 

Makoto, on the other hand, was majoring in Sports Education and put off Philosophy until his third year since it was only a minor subject. He realised later on that it was a  _ terrible _ mistake. Their professor wouldn’t let his students feel that it was a minor subject with all of his demands and the amount of extra work he gave them. 

“Okay,” said Haru.    


Makoto beamed and his green eyes lit up. “Great! Why don’t we grab some lunch first?” 

Haru found himself being led to the campus cafeteria before he could say anything. The lunch time rush was on. The students queued by the food stalls, waiting to be served. 

Haru volunteered to get a table as Makoto lined up to buy some food. He read Makoto’s paper to occupy himself while waiting, and after a while, Makoto returned carrying a tray with a bowl of tonkatsu and shredded cabbage. 

“Aren’t you going to eat?” asked Makoto, sitting across him. 

Haru’s chest constricted. He wasn’t really restricting, no it wasn’t the case. In fact, he woke up early this morning to prepare a mackerel sandwich, but it wasn’t until he was at the university when he realised he left it at the dorm. He could have asked his roommate, Yamazaki Sousuke, to bring it to him but he felt like they weren’t close enough to ask each other a favour. (Haru had suspected Yamazaki had a thing for Rin, but being Rin’s best friend didn’t automatically make Haru and Yamazaki  _ friends _ ). Besides, his roommate would just probably point out how irresponsible he was. 

In conclusion, Haru didn’t deserve to eat because he was stupid enough to leave his food at the dorm. 

He was willing to ignore his hunger until Makoto brought it up. 

Haru waited a moment to respond, perusing the words on Makoto’s paper. 

“I— I forgot my lunch at the dorm,” he finally muttered, and followed up quickly, “I’ll probably just grab something later. Anyway, I also have to finish my paper now so I can draft some plates when I go home.” 

He took out his paper and felt Makoto’s eyes focus on the big red  _ 98% _ mark on the upper right corner. 

“Okay,” said Makoto, his voice soft with reluctance. 

They had to write a longer piece based on their last paper, and Haru could see why Makoto needed help with his. An even bigger  _ 75% _ mark was etched on the upper right corner of Makoto’s paper, as though demanding full attention.

“Please go ahead,” said Haru, pointing at Makoto’s lunch with his pencil. He buried his head on their papers as Makoto clapped his hands together and gave thanks for the food. 

He started reading Makoto’s essay again, this time with more awareness. He got acquainted with Makoto’s thoughts on Sartre and existentialism, encountering encircled statements and hastily-written criticisms occasionally. 

Haru underlined the sentence that caught his attention the most and cleared his throat. 

Makoto blinked and looked at him. 

“Here,” said Haru, sliding the paper across the table to show Makoto. “You mentioned  _ ‘choices define our very essence’ _ , but you didn’t explain it further.” 

Makoto nodded. 

Haru continued giving pointers, underlining words and giving feedback on how to improve them. He couldn’t help but notice Makoto leaning close, his determined face only a few inches away from his. As he listened intently, Haru felt blood rushing to his face, his heart racing…

“Here’s another one,” he said, “ _ ‘We have the choice to take actions to become who we want to be and lead the life we want to live.’  _ It’s a good argument, but you have to quote Sartre to justify it. What did he say about this?” 

He scribbled with neat and capitalised letters, just like how Architecture students write. 

Leaning close to Makoto meant catching a whiff of his lunch too. Thoughts of food suddenly invaded his mind. His mouth watered at the idea of munching on crispy pork and tasting the thick, sweet sauce in his tongue. 

His stomach grumbled and threatened it would gnaw at itself if he didn’t feed it. But no no no no,  _ don’t even think about it _ .  _ You left your food so you don’t deserve to eat. _

He drew an arrow to connect two ideas in different paragraphs. But before he could say anything about it, another wave of lightheadedness hit him and his fingers trembled slightly.  

He held his pencil tighter and forced his hand to underline more words, but Makoto already noticed something was wrong. 

He watched Haru with a frown. Silently, as if trying to string his words together. “How are you feeling, Haru?”  

“Never better,” Haru blurted out without looking up. 

Being addressed by his first name felt strange. It sounded foreign. Intimate. Especially when it came from his new friends who were in the university’s swim team with Rin. (His best friend thought it was a brilliant idea to make friends with people who were passionate about swimming even though Haru wasn’t member of the team, so that was how he knew Makoto, Nagisa, Rei, and the others).  

_ Don’t call me by my name _ , he’d say under his breath, but their insistence did not waver and he eventually got tired of calling them out.  

_ Quick, quick, quick. _ Haru hunted for more loopholes on Makoto’s paper.   

He scribbled something very fast to get Makoto’s attention. He was a master of distracting people. He’d learned all the tricks to redirect their attention to something else whenever they were bringing up something Haru didn’t want to talk about. Perhaps he should make him a cheat sheet so Makoto would know what the professor wanted to see in their papers—  

“No, seriously. You never eat with us,” said Makoto.   

Scribble, scribble. 

“I’m so much better now,” replied Haru.  

“You say that, but you keep backing out on dinner plans with the swim team. You even skip classes just to avoid us—“

Anger brewed in Haru’s core like a storm. He scoffed and put his pencil down with a loud  _ thud _ , silencing Makoto. 

“But you see,  _ it’s nobody’s business, _ ” he said. Realising he’d spoken louder than he intended, he bowed his head and added quietly, “And it’s not like anybody cares if I’m here or not.”

People had made him feel invisible all his life; the time came when he actually wanted to  _ disappear.  _ Why did they decide to care now? 

Makoto was stunned beyond words. He opened his mouth to reply, but hesitated. Haru couldn’t bear to look in those hurt green eyes. He had said too much. 

What was it with words today? He wasn’t the kind of person to wear his heart on his sleeve. That was Makoto. 

“We do,” said Makoto, searching Haru’s face. “We missed you, Haru.” 

His heart leaped upon hearing his name from Makoto’s lips again and resented him for it. He wasn’t allowed to do that.  

Then, Makoto reached inside his backpack and handed him a sandwich. “Here.”

“Makoto—“ 

Haru’s throat constricted with guilt. He couldn’t take Makoto’s food— that was cheating.  _ That’s cheating. Cheating cheating cheating. _

“You can have it,” Makoto insisted. 

Knowing it was the only way out, Haru sighed and accepted it. “Okay.” 

There was nothing left to do but to concede, if only for a while. 

He’d been playing pretend ever since he figured out how easy it was to get out of situations. Everyone would be asking him questions and all he had to do was to pretend and give them reassurance. After that, they would surely leave him alone. Because it was always about  _ them _ and not  _ him _ .  

_ Tell us dear, was it our fault?  _ They would ask _.  _

_ Were we putting too much pressure on you?  _

_ Was it because I left? _

Haru would reassure them that no, of course not.  _ It was all me. _

“You know,” said Makoto, interrupting his train of thought, “after hearing Rin’s stories, I’ve been hoping I could watch you swim one day.” 

Haru turned his head to the side and clenched his fists. “You can’t always believe what Rin says. That guy is full of shit.” 

Makoto smiled a little. Sadness lingered in his eyes. “Don’t you miss swimming?” 

And all at once, Haru was swept with a feeling he thought he’d forgotten. 

If there was something that mattered most to him, it was swimming. His happiest memories came with floating in water and feeling it in his core, making it his home. There was no need to play pretend because everything made sense in the water.  

But that was many lifetimes ago. When his illness took over, it hurled this love away with the intensity of a tsunami and it never found its way back to the shore. 

“I can’t say I know how you feel, but I want you to know that I— we care,” said Makoto. “Rin, Nagisa, Rei, me, and the other guys at the swim club. We want you to get better, Haru.” 

Haru’s chest ached. He could finally recognise the feeling whenever he watched them race each other at the pool. The rush when his friends dive in and swim laps with incredible speed, when they break their personal record, when they high five, laugh, and hug each other after winning a relay match.

They were having fun together, doing what they loved the most, and Haru wanted to feel it too. 

After all these years, he was certain he had lost his interest in swimming, but now he wanted to believe he’d found it again. Or  _ it _ had found him. The realisation overwhelmed him that he didn’t know how to respond. 

“Please, just try,” said Makoto.  

Haru blinked and nodded. 

He fought the trembling in his fingers and told the constant voice in his head that he deserved to get better. He deserved it. 

_ We want you to get better, Haru. _

Breathe in. Breathe out.  

He could swim again. For his friends and for himself.  

Haru picked up the sandwich and took a small bite, hope stirring in his heart.  

**Author's Note:**

> this tiny angsty fic is my first MakoHaru fic ever and i hope i didn’t mess it up too much.
> 
> it’s based on [Cassie’s story arc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8yIqhHPr70) on _Skins_. idk i just want to write something where Haru feels unwanted then Makoto comes along and makes him feel that he matters. 
> 
> i might write more about the other characters and their own issues. what do you think? 
> 
> let’s be friends on Tumblr: nanases-h.tumblr.com


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